Archive for June, 2007
Friday, June 29th, 2007
Did you really believe Vista was more secure than Linux, Mac?
I read that headlines the other day that “Vista is more secure than Linux, Mac”, chuckled and moved on. Did people really believe that propaganda? Well, if you did, there’s a full debunkment now over at seclists.org. It seems a certain group in Redmond still have not figured out how to count… or just happen to miss again the fundamental differences between open and closed vulnerability reporting.
BTW, I noticed that my Google Adwords has recently been bloated with “Windows vs Linux” Google ads. They’re from Microsoft - please do click on them proactively - click on them 10 times if you like. I could exclude microsoft.com but when I thought about it - why? Click away, ring up the bill. I’d love to see the invoice report at Microsoft showing detailed billing for the MichaelDolan.com Google Adwords clicks. I also found it funny that apparently someone at Microsoft uses Google to at least buy the Adwords :-).
http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2007/Jun/0528.html
Thursday, June 28th, 2007
Even Sun chooses Linux over Solaris for high performance
Found this section of Roland Dreier’s blog discussing Sun’s new Constellation system quite humorous:
One other thing I noticed is that the Sun press stuff is billing the Constellation as running Solaris, while the actual TACC page about the Ranger system says the cluster will be running Linux. I’m inclined to believe TACC, since running Solaris for an InfiniBand cluster seems a little silly, given how far behind Solaris’s InfiniBand support is when compared to Linux, whose InfiniBand stack is lovingly maintained by yours truly.
Did you know that of the 7 systems Sun placed in the Top 500, 6 of those 7 are running Linux and only 1 runs Solaris? Who said “Solaris is a better Linux than Linux”?
Thursday, June 28th, 2007
Did you violate any patents last April 15? Say hello to tax patents…
Tax strategy patents are on the rise - if you thought software patents were absurd, wait until you (or your accountant) get dinged for violating these. It would be hard to prove infringement, but I suspect Microsoft will eventually find a way to use tax strategy patents to FUD Intuit or wipe out the few users tied to GnuCash (ok, maybe that’s going to far). Actually, this one has little to do with software patents and more to do with patents on how to avoid being hit with a large tax bill at the end of the year. No, I’m seriously not lying.
As is custom, I was about to toss my wife’s Journal of Accountancy into the trash when something I saw made me reach out and grab it back mid-air (btw, my wife never reads them - her firm gets electronic versions emailed to them). The part that caught my eye was an article on “Tax Patents” which I thought was a curious title. How can someone patent taxes was my initial question - then I realized they must mean tax-avoidance patents and that sounded intriguing.
You may find this intriguing too - the article is available online. I’m not sure how we got here, but I think it’s absurd that Joe Taxpayer could be infringing patents by using a “Process for evaluating the financial consequences of converting a standard form IRA to the Roth form IRA”. Yes, that’s a real patent (Patent no. 6,058,376). Even better was the patent on a “Method for Financing Future Needs” - yes, that one too is real (Patent no. 7,149,712).
Anyway, if you’re interested, you can read about it all here.
Thursday, June 28th, 2007
Google Desktop on Linux is Very Nice
Try it out. I already have it running on the IBM open client for Linux - very easy to install and setup.
Wednesday, June 27th, 2007
Congratulations Red Hat - Beats Wall St. Estimates (again)
http://www.redherring.com/Article.aspx?a=22739&hed=Red+Hat+Beats+Street
Red Hat on Wednesday reported first-quarter results that beat Wall Street expectations, an indication that corporate IT departments are slowly migrating from proprietary to open technology, the company’s chief executive said.
Linux growth overall, not just Red Hat’s specific gains, might be poised to do damage to Windows and the Unix operating systems. Pointing to his company’s last several years of growth, CEO Matt Szulik told Red Herring that an increasing number of companies are ready for Red Hat’s—and the Linux community’s—alternative operating systems.
Wednesday, June 27th, 2007
Presidential candidate website analysis - guess who’s running Linux?
Found this via Bob Sutor. I wonder if these candidates know their websites are running on Linux…
http://www.douglaskarr.com/2007/06/23/2008-elections-by-server/
Wednesday, June 27th, 2007
Google Desktop is coming to your Linux Desktop
Ok, the title assumes you’re using a Linux Desktop - if you’re not, you should. Anyway, you can read an ok, typo prone announcement here:
http://news.com.com/Google+Desktop+goes+Linux/2100-1032_3-6193579.html
Wednesday, June 27th, 2007
Nintendo is looking a Wii bit sharp
Opening up the Wii to outside, independent developers is a brilliant move by Nintendo as they’re clearly differentiating themselves from Sony and Microsoft. As our culture moves towards user generated content (see YouTube), it only makes sense that some users will likely create highly popular games as well with small capital requirements. Games do not have to be developed on the scale of Halo - look at Tetris or … GNU Chess … err, maybe not. Anyway, I love the move by Nintendo and I suspect it will only be a matter of time (and lost market share) before Sony or Microsoft follow suit. I suspect Sony would be the one to gain the most from doing something similar, but seeing what they’ve done to limit the impact of Linux/PS3 (see video drivers), it’s clear they’re intent on controlling the gaming content and don’t want end user competition. A poor move if you ask me; this is how market leaders fall.
Wednesday, June 27th, 2007
The current crop of Linux distributions, Ubuntu, Fedora and Solaris 10…
I often tell those who ask about Solaris and (or vs) Linux to just download Solaris 10 and give it a try… see for yourself, why listen to me. It appears Indigo Jo did just that all on his own. From Indigo’s blog:
As things stand, it’s not worth it for any Linux user to migrate to Solaris 10, even if it is free.
Indigo Jo also seems to have chosen Fedora 7 over Ubuntu which is an interesting twist of late… I’ve heard of a couple (literally 2) people moving back to Fedora - not a trend by any stretch, but I like v7 and might eventually move one of my systems to Fedora to leverage the Xen/KVM workloads… maybe…
Tuesday, June 26th, 2007
Once again, Linux on POWER is the fastest OS/processor combo on the planet
Linux is the fastest OS on the planet racing in at 3 petaflops. Not sure what a petaflop is? Wikipedia can help. Full BlueGene specs are viewable here.
IBM has devised a new Blue Gene supercomputer — the Blue Gene/P — that will be capable of processing more than 3 quadrillion operations a second, or 3 petaflops, a possible record. Blue Gene/P is designed to continuously operate at more than 1 petaflop in real-world situations.
Blue Gene/P marks a significant milestone in computing. Last November, the Blue Gene/L was ranked as the most powerful computer on the planet: it topped out at 280 teraflops, or 280 trillion operations a second during continuous operation.
Put another way, a Blue Gene/P operating at a petaflop is performing more operations than a 1.5-mile-high (2.4km) stack of laptops.
Tuesday, June 26th, 2007
Microsoft loses in attempt to undermine source code escrow for e-voting software in NY
Good news and it looks like this will be an opportunity for Linux in e-voting systems. http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=legislation_regulation&articleId=9025618&taxonomyId=70&intsrc=kc_top
The activists had feared that Microsoft and a handful of e-voting device vendors would quietly weaken the state’s strict e-voting software escrow law before the current legislative session ended on Friday. Approved two years ago by the legislature (download PDF), the law requires voting system vendors to place all source code and other related software in escrow for the New York State Board of Elections so it can be examined as needed. The law also dictates that a voting system vendor waives all intellectual property and trade right secret rights should the software need to be reviewed in court.
Microsoft, whose Windows software is used in some of the vendors’ devices, sought to amend the law to avoid the strict escrow provisions.
Tuesday, June 26th, 2007
Rumormill: MySQL Going Public
The talk is everwhere… will this end all the FUD about no business in “open source” (cringe)? Doubt it. Anyway, here’s a decent article over at CIO today giving a fairly balanced view:
That small community of open-source stocks may soon be widening. MySQL, a fast-growing maker of database software used by some of the Internet’s most recognized brands, is preparing to file for an initial public offering, perhaps as soon as late 2007.
The offering could value the company at between $600 million and $1 billion, according to sources, and inject some pep into a tech IPO market that’s seen only a handful of successful offerings in the past year. Credit Suisse is a top contender to lead the underwriting of the transaction, BusinessWeek has learned.
Tuesday, June 26th, 2007
IBM’s Savio Rodrigues is Writing for InfoWorld
Not sure how this worked out, but I discovered today that Savio Rodriguez has taken his personal blog to the mass media via InfoWorld.
Tuesday, June 26th, 2007
Dell Modifies its Ubuntu System Lineup
http://www.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic.aspx/linux_3x?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs
Looks like Dell added a 4th system (laptop) and made some tweaks to its base systems.
Monday, June 25th, 2007
Meme Games: 3×3 Lessons for Open Source Firms
I was tagged by Stephen O’Grady… while I generally avoid replying to such meme’s, I then saw Luis replied and that put the rest of us tagged on the spot ;-) I am also replying because I probably see a different side of the equation that could potentially help others understand how the IBM-like vendors look at open source firms. Hopefully there may be at least a small level of insight that someone can benefit from in this response. I’ll put the usual disclaimers around this - take it “as is” with no express or implied warranties for fitness for any particular purpose (or merchantability).
I will preface that this meme is about “open source firms” which I assume means companies/profit seekers leveraging open source software as a model to grow - not those who take on the humble task of building free software in a non-commercial intent model (i.e. Apache, Eclipse). Having replied to this meme, I get to name the next round of victims. For that I will now tag Canonical’s Mark Shuttleworth, kernel hacker Gerrit Huizenga who participates uniquely with other Linux firms in the community, and finally sogrady’s partner in crime over at Redmonk, Coté. So without further adieu, here’s my quick/dirty 3×3.
3 “Do”s:
1) Do Bring Crisp Customer Value to the Table: Define a value proposition beyond simply relying on being “open source” - there has to be some reason your value proposition is better (i.e. Firms in your industry constantly struggle to integrate X and Y while customizing for individual business units. Our open, modular architecture can be adapted to meet your individual business unit CRM requirements and integrate with X without expensive, lengthy customizations of the entire app) Hitting on a pain point of “closed” alternatives works well too - ask a PBX user how much they love their supplier(s)… turn the pain points (licensing, payment models, etc) into your value prop
2) Do Make Friends, Not Enemies: I once had a _smart*_ once tell me in an opening introductory sentence at an O’Reilly event his job was to use open source to wipe out millions of dollars of IBM’s business until IBM realized they’d have to buy him. That was his first sentence to me ever! - not “Hi, I’m XYZ from ABC, I’d like to find ways to partner with IBM”. The IT business is driven by partnerships, friendships, loyalties, acquaintances, and networking. If you are into open source to make a profit, partner like mad - if you position yourself as the enemy, expect to be killed or worse, ignored and slowly put out to pasture. The person who approached me in that manner is now struggling with the latter issue… I suspect his initial investors won’t hang around long as he still tries to make himself relevant.
3) Do Make the Right Friends - Partner with the Right Partners: The open source firms with a strong management team “get” partnering. They partner with other firms that can enable business and community growth. Just because someone like IBM invests millions in open source communities, Linux, and the community does not mean every open source firm should bet the farm on partnering with IBM. Yes, partnering with IBM has advantages, but IBM can also suck up your precious resources simply navigating the huge array of virtual teams. IBM may also have a differing strategy (and every strategy out of IBM is not necessarily the one that wins in market - you can be different). As an open source firm, your goal is to find the right partners who are naturally aligned for partnering with you. Don’t accept partnerships that have no investment on one side - they’re doomed. Both sides must be aligned and invested. How will your partnership not only create more business for you, but also generate new revenue or reach a new customer base for your partners. I’ve had this discussion with the head a particular open source firm on a few occasions - partnering is by definition mutual - how do we both benefit from partnering? (otherwise, I can’t justify investment and maybe I’m not the right partner for you) Another IBM partner with an open source product just closed another round of investment for ~$25M - they know how to partner in a mutually beneficial model. There will be a lot of news coming in this space…
3 “Do not”s:
1) Do Not Shy Away from Being a Commercial Business - too often companies pitch how “open” they are. While that’s great, how do you make money? It’s as if some open source firms are afraid to discuss how they make money off of free software (free as in speech). This is usually a good way for vendors to weed out the bad firms - if the firm is shy about discussing this, they probably have a weak value prop, and there’s probably more of a “hidden hook” to make customers pay than offer something customers want to pay for. IBM has for a long time been investing substantially in Linux, open standards/source based software, and open source communities - I can’t recall an executive who did not clearly, up-front, and simultaneously articulate how IBM generates revenue from any of those ventures. If you set the tone up front, no one will be surprised or upset later. And if you have a strong value prop - see point 1) - customers will expect your valuable product/service comes at a reasonable price. And one last point is “free as in beer” only gets you one round - downloads do not magically turn into profit later. I don’t care if you have 8M downloads - while that’s great for showing loose interest in your technology, how many are paying you? How many have built a dependency in their applications on your technology? How are you going to generate the revenue needed to fund the next version of your technology?
2) [If you are trying to be the standard as in platform], Do Not Try to Control/Dominate/Dictate an “open” Community Project. I’m not talking about MySQL here - they’re an application/database component. Rather, think about platforms like operating systems, dynamic server languages, portable runtimes, etc. that customers use as platforms to build on. There are many of these succeeding today (RHT, NOVL, PHP, Apache, Eclipse to name just a few). There are others that may have an open source license, but the firm tries to dominate with restrictions and provisions in contributor agreements, including hidden hooks in license terms, or by bundling in non-free (as in speech) components. These firms typically then claim to be leaders and their platform is growing in adoption … yet for some reason… no one partners with them - see point 2) - and they carry the entire development expense with no community-scaling benefits. They invest the R&D and in the end, their “community platform” is just another vendor product that rings well with the vendors existing customers. Consider Eclipse - while it may have started with IBM dominating the “participant list”, it takes a serious approach to vendor-neutrality and open participation for BEA, Oracle, Sybase, Zend, Actuate, Compuware, SAP, CA, and Borland to all join IBM on the Strategic vendors list. The same applies to Linux - look at the Linux Foundation membership list.
3) Do Not Ignore Intellectual Property; Do Not Let Intellectual Property Stifle Your Innovation - First, you cannot ignore the effects and implications of intellectual property decisions. First, there’s the license - not all software must be GPL, but there are serious, practical issues if you decide to create the “XYZ Corp Open Source License v1.0″. License appropriately for the type of developer and user community you’re trying to foster. Second, patents - take a political stance, but don’t get caught staring at the clouds waiting for Congress. File for patents if you can, what you do with them after is up to you, but the Patent Commons, OIN, or some other entity is a great place to house them. Also, don’t be stupid and violate an obviously valid patent. If you’re starting an open source project in a technology area that has established players - hire an attorney to guide you through the minefield. It can be done. Third, figure out the trademark situation. Badgeware is one issue, but not creating a trademarked identity that your “open community” can use in viral marketing and “I’m proud to be an XYZ-user” situations is sheer nonsense. You need to establish legal trademarks, then set clear guidelines for trademark usage up front, make it open, and don’t use your trademark to make people pay you - IMO it’s a poor business practice and creates unnecessary frustration later on. And finally, don’t let IP hold you up. Everyone knows this field is wrought with nonsense and arcane approaches to IP. If you can create value, just hire a reasonable IP attorney to walk you through the field. Take some basic steps to be safe, but don’t spin wheels and tie up valuable resources trying to analyze (or let an attorney make you analyze) every conceivable, possible, extreme angle. IP generally comprises of Patents, Copyrights, Trade Secrets, and Trademarks - use them wisely.
If I had a 4×4 meme, I’d also cover open standards and the importance to lead in driving these open standards as part of your model (see what happened with Spring for instance).
Monday, June 25th, 2007
The greening of Linux
Saw an article over at CNet this morning highlighting the power saving improvements that are in the latest kernels. These “tickless” kernels can offer a boost in power efficiency for those of us running mobile Linux on laptops and also for Linux server users with scale out power efficiency concerns. This is truly an open community tackling a growing user concern both proactively and early.
http://news.com.com/Linux+coders+tackle+power+efficiency/2100-1007_3-6192865.html
Sunday, June 24th, 2007
Get Ubuntu Desktop from Windows Marketplace today
Errr… looks like it was taken down. Thank you Google cache for this humorous screenshot:
Friday, June 22nd, 2007
Steven Vaughan-Nichols “Bad, Bad Reasons Not to Buy Open Source Software”
I actually seem to have missed the slide show SVN is apparently tearing apart, but can’t say I disagree with him on these points. If the slideshow really claimed the points he’s reacting to, whoever wrote the slideshow should be fired for pulling a DiDio crime-scene-reporter-turned-tech-industry-expert-fraud.
URL: http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2148775,00.asp
Opinion: When I first saw the list for the eWEEK slide show, Ten Reasons Not to Buy Open Source, I couldn’t believe what I was reading. So here are my answers to these “reasons.”
Without further adieu, here are my answers to the “reasons” not to buy open-source software.
Wednesday, June 20th, 2007
Study shows Linux is a better web hosting platform than Windows
http://www.watchmouse.com/en/press.php?vprrelid=3551
I generally cringe when I see “study says” (or I experience flashbacks of Family Feud), but this study seems fairly credible They studied over 1,500 websites in various industries in Europe. Obviously the leading OS’s were Windows and Linux but more than that, the Linux based sites showed better uptime and performance - can’t beat that. I think this is the first independent study not funded by Microsoft in a while… shocking that Linux wins again… In fact, this appears to be based on research from WatchMouse’s website monitoring services. A product the company sells - and it would seem derives interesting insights from. Based on nothing other than their website, they would probably have no reason to put out a biased position.
WatchMouse researched the performance of over 1500 websites across different economic sectors in Europe. Most websites in this study are based on either Linux or Windows. Linux offers the best uptime.
When looking at the relative performance of the different web server platforms, Linux clearly beats Windows.
Tuesday, June 19th, 2007
Linux Foundation Desktop Architects Meeting 4 Breakout Notes
Breakout notes from DAM-4 are available online over at the LF wiki - the action items will give you a sense of where the LF / DAs are heading. I found printing particularly interesting - boring as printing may be, it needs some work for desktop users.
http://www.linux-foundation.org/en/Breakout_notes
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